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"There is a terrible desperation to the increasingly pathetic rationalizations from the climate denial camp. This comes as no surprise if you take the long view; every single undone paradigm in history has died kicking and screaming, and our current petroleum paradigm 🐉🦕🦖 is no different. The trick here is trying to figure out how we all make it to the new ⚡ paradigm without dying ☠️ right along with the old one, kicking, screaming or otherwise." - William Rivers Pitt

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Topic: Future Earth (Read 11413 times)

During many periods in human history, some were doing just fine and others lived on the edge of starvation in a constant state of collapse.

The one unifying aspect of the present threat to human civilization is Catastrophic Climate Change, NOT lack of fossil fuel based energy.

I am absolutely certain that many jungle tribes in Brazil, Ecuador and Peru RIGHT NOW live on the edge of starvation in a constant state of collapse, while most of the city dwellers live not much better, but still avoid starvation.

My point in this quixotic exercise in hard truth logic is that the lack of food in the past has eventually triggered revolutions, not collapse of the civilization. LONG WARS of aggression are what have actually triggered collapse.

Catastrophic Climate Change is worse than a long war of aggression because it will last much longer than a human lifetime.

The climate change problem is intractable, but some WILL beat it for maybe a century or so. For example, there are places near the equator with very high mountains. A world heated plus 4 ° C by around 2060, despite happy talk by certain wishful thinkers, will kill off most humans. BUT, in high mountains, the tree line will move way up while the temperature becomes temperate, even at the Equator. I stress the equator, though RE will vigorously disagree, because human civilization in a low food environment with over acidified seas (no easy fish or whales or seals to catch = NO ESKIMOS) with poor available sunlight is not a recipe for long term survival, even if the temperature is mild enough to grow crops.

There is a mountain in Ecuador (Chimborazo) about 20,000 feet high that will, because of the horrendously altered atmosphere, get plenty of rain even at high altitudes. There are several other candidates in the HIGH tropics around the world. This will enable the folks living there to grow enough food, thanks to an ABUNDANCE of sunlight all year round, with low tech methods. They just might be able to ride out the fossil fuel burning stupidity that dooms most of human civilization.

ALL the people near the surface in the tropics will die as crispy critters, period. Those in temperate zones will perish too. Those near the poles who live near the surface will last as long as the food they have lasts. Unless they can maintain some geothermally heated and powered high tech greenhouse CITY that includes PLENTY of crop growing quality light and plenty of water, they will die too. I might add that those greenhouse giant domes had better be MASSIVELY strong. The storms that will visit them and the wind speeds they will face in a PLUS 4 ° C planet will make any recent hurricane look like a gentle breeze.

STOP thinking you are going to live on planet that has the remotest resemblance to the one you have lived in all your life. THAT is WISHFUL THINKING! The LEAST of your problems is going to be worrying about the "zombie" humans getting your stuff.

NOTE: I pose these issues for your discussion. I will not argue the merits of them beyond this comment. If you disagree with anything I said, then you are entitled to be as wrong as you like.

Fill it out a bit more and send to me in PM without all the fancy fonts.

RE

Let me ponder this for a while. I suppose I could gather a bunch of screenshots from Google earth of potential crop growing high mountain areas, check out the tree line during the Eemian period, scrounge around for some LARGE greenhouse pictures (with zombies looking in - just kidding!) and this and that. I'll get back to you.

Fill it out a bit more and send to me in PM without all the fancy fonts.

RE

Let me ponder this for a while. I suppose I could gather a bunch of screenshots from Google earth of potential crop growing high mountain areas, check out the tree line during the Eemian period, scrounge around for some LARGE greenhouse pictures (with zombies looking in - just kidding!) and this and that. I'll get back to you.

I cover a little of Mountain growing in my next Sunday Brunch article. It's only tangential though. Your article might provide a good followup to that.

During many periods in human history, some were doing just fine and others lived on the edge of starvation in a constant state of collapse. Abrupt changes in climate, such as that caused in France by a massive Laki volcanic eruption in Iceland in 1783, have resulted in famine induced starvation. In that case, starvation was followed by social upheaval and revolution, instead of collapse. Civilization in Iceland was nearly wiped out with that eruption (over one third of the population was killed), but did not collapse.

For a collapse to occur, the society destroying pressure must last longer than a decade or so. For example, natural climate alterations that produced lengthy droughts caused some ancient starving civilizations to eventually collapse.

SNIPPET From the March 21, 2016 article, "Ten Civilizations or Nations That Collapsed From Drought", by Jeff Masters:

Drought is the great enemy of human civilization. Drought deprives us of the two things necessary to sustain life--food and water. When the rains stop and the soil dries up, cities die and civilizations collapse, as people abandon lands no longer able to supply them with the food and water they need to live. While the fall of a great empire is usually due to a complex set of causes, drought has often been identified as the primary culprit or a significant contributing factor in a surprising number of such collapses. Drought experts Justin Sheffield and Eric Wood of Princeton, in their 2011 book, Drought, identify more than ten civilizations, cultures and nations that probably collapsed, in part, because of drought. As we mark World Water Day on March 22, we should not grow overconfident that our current global civilization is immune from our old nemesis--particularly in light of the fact that a hotter climate due to global warming will make droughts more intense and impacts more severe. So, presented here is a "top ten" list of drought's great power over some of the mightiest civilizations in world history--presented chronologically.

֍ Collapse #1. The Akkadian Empire in Syria, 2334 BC - 2193 BC.

֍ Collapse #2. The Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt, 4200 years ago.

֍ Collapse #3. The Late Bronze Age (LBA) civilization in the Eastern Mediterranean. About 3200 years ago, the Eastern Mediterranean hosted some of the world’s most advanced civilizations.

֍ Collapse #4. The Maya civilization of 250 - 900 AD in Mexico. Severe drought killed millions of Maya people due to famine and lack of water, and initiated a cascade of internal collapses that destroyed their civilization at the peak of their cultural development, between 750 - 900 AD.

֍ Collapse #5. The Tang Dynasty in China, 700 - 907 AD. At the same time as the Mayan collapse, China was also experiencing the collapse of its ruling empire, the Tang Dynasty. Dynastic changes in China often occurred because of popular uprisings during crop failure and famine associated with drought.

֍ Collapse #6. The Tiwanaku Empire of Bolivia's Lake Titicaca region, 300 - 1000 AD. The Tiwanaku Empire was one of the most important South American civilizations prior to the Inca Empire. After dominating the region for 500 years, the Tiwanaku Empire ended abruptly between 1000 - 1100 AD, following a drying of the region, as measured by ice accumulation in the Quelccaya Ice Cap, Peru.

֍ Collapse #7. The Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) culture in the Southwest U.S. in the 11th - 12th centuries AD. Beginning in 1150 AD, North America experienced a 300-year drought called the Great Drought.

֍ Collapse #8. The Khmer Empire based in Angkor, Cambodia, 802 - 1431 AD. The Khmer Empire ruled Southeast Asia for intense decades-long droughts interspersed with intense monsoons in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that, in combination with other factors, contributed to the empire's demise.

֍ Collapse #9. The Ming Dynasty in China, 1368 - 1644 AD. China's Ming Dynasty--one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history--collapsed at a time when the most severe drought in the region in over 4000 years was occurring, according to sediments from Lake Huguang Maar analyzed in a 2007 article in Nature by Yancheva et al.

In this image, we see Kurdish Syrian girls among destroyed buildings in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane on March 22, 2015. Image credit: Yasin Akgul/AFP/Getty Images.

֍ Collapse #10. Modern Syria. Syria's devastating civil war that began in March 2011 has killed over 300,000 people, displaced at least 7.6 million, and created an additional 4.2 million refugees. While the causes of the war are complex, a key contributing factor was the nation's devastating drought that began in 1998. The drought brought Syria's most severe set of crop failures in recorded history, which forced millions of people to migrate from rural areas into cities, where conflict erupted. This drought was almost certainly Syria's worst in the past 500 years (98% chance), and likely the worst for at least the past 900 years (89% chance), according to a 2016 tree ring study by Cook et al., "Spatiotemporal drought variability in the Mediterranean over the last 900 years." Human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases were "a key attributable factor" in the drying up of wintertime precipitation in the Mediterranean region, including Syria, in recent decades, as discussed in a NOAA press release that accompanied a 2011 paper by Hoerling et al., On the Increased Frequency of Mediterranean Drought.

A 2016 paper by drought expert Colin Kelley showed that the influence of human greenhouse gas emissions had made recent drought in the region 2 - 3 times more likely.

As Dr. Jeff Masters evidenced above, extended drought, sometimes alternating with other harsh climate conditions like intense rains, can lead to starvation. Long wars exacerbate the situation, leading directly to collapse.

In addition to the above, there is another climate change based collapse level attack on human civilization, one that is 100% unavoidable now, that has wreaked havoc in the past.

SNIPPET from the March 23, 2018 article, "Humanity has contended with rising seas before — and it didn’t go well for us", by Alxandru Micu:

The Neolithic revolution was the first major transformation humanity had paused — the transition foraging to farming. Spreading out from the Middle East, this wave of change took peoples used to hunt and forage wherever they pleased and tied them down, hoe in hand, to sedentary — but oh so lucrative — farms and fields.

Around 7,600 years ago, however, the revolution paused — no new agricultural settlements seemed to pop up in Southeastern Europe around the time, existing communities declined, and the progress of civilization as a whole came to a standstill. Up until now, we didn’t have any inkling as to why this happened, but new research from the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, the Goethe University in Frankfurt, and the University of Toronto sheds some light on this mysterious period.

According to their findings, this lull in progress was due to an abrupt rise in sea levels in the northern Aegean Sea. Evidence of this event was calcified in the fossils of tiny marine algae preserved in seafloor sediments.

The impact this event had on societal dynamics and overall development during the time highlights the potential economic and social threats posed by sea level rise in the future, the team says. Given that climate-change-associated changes in sea level are virtually unavoidable, the team hopes their findings will help us better prepare for the flooding ahead.

“Approximately 7,600 years ago, the sea level must have risen abruptly in the Mediterranean regions bordering Southeastern Europe. The northern Aegean, the Marmara Sea and the Black Sea recorded an increase of more than one meter. This led to the flooding of low-lying coastal areas that would have been ideal areas for settlement,” says lead author Professor Dr. Jens Herrle.

The evidence supports a link between the two timeouts in the Neolithic revolution and the flooding events. The event 8,400 years ago coincides with archaeological findings suggesting that settlements in low-lying areas were under significant hardship from encroaching seas and other associated climatic changes. The renewed rise just 800 years later likely amplified these communities’ woes, keeping them from making the transition to agriculture.

“The source of this may have been Lake Agassiz in North America. This glacial meltwater lake was enclosed in ice and experienced a massive breach during this period, which emptied an enormous volume of water into the ocean.”

Past fluctuations in sea levels have already had a significant effect on human history during the early days of agriculture, the authors note, warning that it would be unwise to dismiss the challenges it will place in our path in the future.

The article goes on to repeat the overly conservative estimate from the IPCC of a rise by up to "one meter over the next 100 years". That is the same IPCC that predicted the amount of ice depletion we have at present at the poles would not occur until 2070. That is the same IPCC that has NOT figured in the contribution of ice loss from Greenland to global sea level rise in any of the models.

So, if you are a logical person, I recommend you count on 3 to 6 meters, at least, of sea level rise several decades before the end of the century. As Peter Ward says (The Flooded Earth: Our Future In a World Without Ice Caps by Peter D. Ward]), over 25% of the world's arable land is near sea level and will be flooded. Most major airports along coastlines will be flooded. Every harbor facility in the world will require a staggering amount of land fill to raise them as the sea level goes up. Most coastal real estate, currently highly assessed in value, will be flooded and become worthless.

By the way, the latest science indicates that rapid sea level rise will be accompanied by a large increase in volcanic eruptions (which might slow down the heating due to a temporary increase in aerosols), and and increase in earthquaqe activity. The volcanic aerosols, at most, will be a minor speed bump on the way to intolerable climate caos. So, please don't count on volcanic eruptions to 'save us' from global warming hell. That is wishful thinking.

I am not a voice "crying in the wilderness" on this issue. I will provide you some screenshots from the video of a scientist who recently wrote the book, "Waking the Climate Giant". He predicts a continued increase in volcanic activity, now observed in the data, due to terrain bounce from melting land ice and increased pressure on the surrounding seabed, as the the global average temperature increases. It's not the volcanoes that are increasing the heat, it's the greenhouse gases that are causing massive ice melt that, in turn, triggers earthquages and volcanic eruptions. Read his book if you disagree. I just watched the video but I think he is spot on.

On Earth, destructive climate change was not catastrophic before. The difference now it that the entire globe will be impacted. Humans have never lived on a planet with an average temperature of 3° C above pre-industrial. We will pass that mark up a half century before 2100 and continue towards PLUS 4° C and beyond, with no available technological or natural negative feedback mechanism to stop the continued acceleration, not slowing, of the rate of increase in temperature.

Already our atmosphere is being distorted by global warming to the point of pushing the dry subtropical bands on either side of the tropics towards their respective pole, thereby increasind drought conditions in highly populated areas and a large percentage of hitherto arable terrain.

SNIPPET from the February 2, 2016 article, "The mystery of the expanding tropics", by Olive Heffernan

As Earth's dry zones shift rapidly polewards, researchers are scrambling to figure out the cause — and consequences.

One spring day in 2004, Qiang Fu was poring over atmospheric data collected from satellites when he noticed an unusual and seemingly inexplicable pattern. In two belts on either side of the equator, the lower atmosphere was warming more than anywhere else on Earth. Fu, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, was puzzled.

It wasn't until a year later that he realized what he had discovered: evidence of a rapid expansion of the tropics, the region that encircles Earth's waist like a green belt. The heart of the tropics is lush, but the northern and southern edges are dry. And these parched borders are growing — expanding into the subtropics and pushing them towards the poles.

Tropical forest lossesoutpace UN estimates

Cities that currently sit just outside the tropics could soon be smack in the middle of the dry tropical edge. That's bad news for places like San Diego, California. “A shift of just one degree of latitude in southern California — that's enough to have a huge impact on those communities in terms of how much rain they will get,” explains climate modeller Thomas Reichler of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

Elsewhere, there is evidence that tropical expansion is affecting the ocean. Where the Hadley cell descends, bringing cool air downward, it energizes the ocean and whips up currents to high speeds. This energy powers the upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich waters towards the surface, which feeds some of the world's most productive fisheries. But there are hints that some of these regions are suffering because of shifts in the Hadley cell.

These upwelling zones could move south over time, or get weaker or stronger, depending on what happens to the Hadley cell, says Cook. In any case, it means that fishing communities that rely on these resources will not be able to count on traditional patterns.

On land, biodiversity is also potentially at risk. This is especially true for the climate zones just below the subtropics in South Africa and Australia, on the southern rim of both continents. In southwestern Australia, renowned as one of the world's biodiversity hotspots, flowers bloom during September, when tourists come to marvel at some of the region's 4,000 endemic plant species. But since the late 1970s, rainfall there has dropped by one-quarter. The same is true at South Africa's Cape Floristic Province, another frontier known for its floral beauty. “This is the most concrete evidence we have of tropical expansion,” says Steve Turton, an environmental geographer at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia.

Turton worries that the rate of change will be too rapid for these ecosystems to adapt. “We're talking about rapid expansion that's within half or a third of a human lifetime,” he says. In the worst-case scenario, the subtropics will overtake these ecologically rich outposts and the hotter, drier conditions will take a major toll.

Vermont is already experiencing the economy harming effects of climate change. A Vermonter, concerned about this, wrote about it. He has a right to be.

Watching Nature Collapse March 24th, 2018 by George Harvey

Sometimes it seems the best of everything is passing away.

SNIPPET:

A few years ago, someone threw a peach pit into shrubbery on the front yard of the house where I live. The tree that sprouted from the peach pit is now bearing fruit. Neighbors have paw-paw trees growing in their yards. But Vermont’s maple sugar industry, and the apple orchards, and the blueberry fields are all suffering. Vermont is fast becoming a place unlike what it has ever been, and it is not an improvement.

Don't look at what he wrote as the "new normal" and just think we can 'adapt' to climate change by growing different crops and so on. This is the leading edge of climate that will soon, much sooner than many think, become intolerable for crop growing. We are not just on a treadmill moving in the wrong direction; our velocity on that deadly treadmill is increasing. Please keep that in mind so you are not lulled into thinking it would be 'nice' to grow palm trees in Burlington. Yes, the fossil fuel industry 🦖 does continue to try to pitch the 'warmer weather good' out of context propaganda happy talk. They'll do anything to keep their profit over people and planet suicide machine going. Stupid is as stupid does.

All these deleterious effects of Catastrophic Climate Change will continually get worse, not for a decade or so, but for over a century.

Temperatures unsuitable for human life are baked in for at least a couple of centuries, even if we stopped the insanity of constantly making things even worse by going on a crash program to stop burning fossil fuels. Yeah, we have to do that. Yeah, if we don't, we are all dead. But, regardless of what we do, it will take a while to catch up to all of us. I write this for those who, though sadly unable to stop the insane suicidal "business model" of the biosphere killing fossil fuel fascists, wish to survive as long as possible.

I wish to stress that, though many confused voices out there do not wish to face this, the one unifying aspect of the present threat 🌡️ to human civilization is Catastrophic Climate Change 🚩, NOT lack of fossil fuel based energy.

Have I got your attention? Good.

Then, look at this graphic from the Video, "Waking the Climate Giant", and ask yourself if it reflects our current situation:

The above graphic is already correct in its prediciton. In 2017 (the emissions data was for the years 2014, 2015 and 2016) the greenhouse gas emissions INCREASED. Consequently, there is a very, very high probability that the collapse of our civilization will occur much sooner than we think.

Some humans in different parts of the globe are already well acquainted with living on the edge of collapse. I am absolutely certain that many jungle tribes in Brazil, Ecuador and Peru, RIGHT NOW, live on the edge of starvation in a constant state of collapse, while most of the city dwellers nearby live not much better, but still avoid starvation.

My point in this quixotic exercise in hard truth logic is that the lack of food in the past has eventually triggered revolutions, not collapse of the civilization. It is after the social upheaval, when no solution to the lack of food problem is found, such as is in LONG WARS of aggression or extended harsh climate conditions, that collapse ensues.

People tend to fear other people more than deleterious climate. People can certainly be a threat to your life and stuff, but Catastrophic Climate Change is a much greater threat to everything you hold dear, past, present and future.

Catastrophic Climate Changeis worse than a long war of aggression because it will last much longer than a human lifetime.

The climate change problem is intractable, but I believe some WILL beat it for maybe a century or so. For example, there are places near the equator with very high mountains. A world heated plus 4° C by around 2060, despite happy talk by certain wishful thinkers, will kill off most humans. BUT, in high mountains, the tree line will move way up while the temperature becomes temperate, even at the Equator. I stress the equator, though RE will vigorously disagree, because human civilization in a low food environment with over acidified seas (no easy fish or whales or seals to catch = NO ESKIMOS) with poor available sunlight is not a recipe for long term survival, even if the temperature is mild enough to grow crops.

There is a mountain in Ecuador (Chimborazo) about 20,000 feet high that will, because of the horrendously altered atmosphere, get plenty of rain even at high altitudes. There are several other candidates in the HIGH tropics around the world. This will enable the folks living there to grow enough food, thanks to an ABUNDANCE of sunlight all year round, with low tech methods. They just might be able to ride out the fossil fuel burning stupidity that dooms most of human civilization.

The tree line, the highest point on a mountain that trees will grow, varies between 5,000 feet and up to 13,000 feet above sea level. It varies so much mainly because of wind chill, though the length of the summer growing season is important as well. A tree in relatively mild wind conditions can grow all the way up to the maximum recorded tree line altitude at temperature well below freezing (down to minus 40° F =- 40° C ), provided its roots can get enough water.

Trees can have liquid water in their tracheal elements at such low temperatures because of a wonderful combination of two factors. The first is that the 'pumping' mechanism of a tree is more a sucking mechanism than a pumping mechanism. The transpiration of water vapor into the atmosphere at the branch leaf pores creates negative pressure on the water molecules inside the tree (as long as the tracheal elements vacuum is not breached by air intrusion).

Water molecules, as they travel up the inside of tree, aided by capillary action as well as transpiration, can be stretched by as much as negative 25 atmospheres! That is how those Giant Sequoias can move up to a 130 gallons of water a day over a 100 feet vertically.

The second factor is that the water in the tracheal elements, in addition to being thoroughly stretched, is extremely pure. This prevents the crystalization of water around non-water substances that would normally trigger freezing at 0° C. But, when the wind is howling during below freezing temperatures, the wind chill can cause the water in the tree to freeze and eventually kill the tree.

The closer to the equator a high mountain tree is located, the longer it's growing season will be. If the growing season is too short, like in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the tree line is only about 4,500 feet.

SNIPPET from an article about the Tree line:

The elevational limit of such suitable summer conditions varies by latitude. In Mexico, for example, treeline occurs somewhere around 13,000 feet, whereas farther north, in the Tetons, for instance, it occurs lower, at approximately 10,000 feet. Again, it’s a ragged line that may vary by hundreds of feet on any mountain, depending largely on shelter and exposure.

Because the elevational treeline is so closely tied to temperature, many suggest that it could be a particularly sensitive indicator of global climate change. Presumably, rising temperatures would increase the elevation of treeline in any locale, altering forest distribution and potentially ousting rare plant communities – and their inhabitants – that now exist above treeline. Although the specific physiological mechanism of treeline formation is not fully understood, there is growing photographic and other evidence of upward shifts in treelines worldwide.

A PLUS 4° C (and still going up) atmosphere by around 2060 will enable trees to grow at much higher altitudes. For every degree increase in average global temperature, a corresponding increase in humidity of at least 7% to 13% will take place. We will have an atmosphere expanding vertically, but also with increased humidity. This will accelerate warming because water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas, but the good news is that high mountain areas will, in some areas, experience more rain higher up.

As noted at the beginning of this article, humans need water and other adequate growing conditions in order to have a viable civilization.

The Catastrophic Climate Changed world of 2060 will be a stormy place. The over acidified, mostly dead oceans, will be full of giant waves. The winds during storms will be off the charts in comparison to what we experience now. High up in the mountains, some type of barrier will need to be erected to keep the fierce winds from destroying the crops.

Finally, those hardy folks who carve out a life in year-round sunny high mountains will have to deal with UV radiation. It is a fact that, at present, the UV levels at around 10,000 ft. and above are particularly hazardous to humans.

However, with the expanded atmosphere in an overheated planet, this is the one area I see as hopeful for humans and animals living on very high mountains. You see, in said expanded atmosphere of plus 4° C and above, the massive increase in humidity will inhibit UV radiaiton.

Nevertheless. Since the equator alpine areas are infamous for high UV radiation, it would be prudent to plan to plant crops that have high UV tolerant foliage, like tubers. Hopefully, the greatly increased humidity will help protect the High Mountain Human Heroes.

SNIPPET:

Everyone is exposed to UV radiation from the sun and an increasing number of people are exposed to artificial sources used in industry, commerce and recreation. Emissions from the sun include visible light, heat and UV radiation.

The UV region covers the wavelength range 100-400 nm and is divided into three bands:

UVA (315-400 nm)UVB (280-315 nm)UVC (100-280 nm).

As sunlight passes through the atmosphere, all UVC and approximately 90% of UVB radiation is absorbed by ozone, water vapour, oxygen and carbon dioxide. UVA radiation is less affected by the atmosphere. Therefore, the UV radiation reaching the Earth’s surface is largely composed of UVA with a small UVB component.

Environmental factors that influence the UV level

Sun height—the higher the sun in the sky, the higher the UV radiation level. Thus UV radiation varies with time of day and time of year, with maximum levels occurring when the sun is at its maximum elevation, at around midday (solar noon) during the summer months.

Latitude—the closer the equator, the higher the UV radiation levels.

Cloud cover— UV radiation levels are highest under cloudless skies. Even with cloud cover, UV radiation levels can be high due to the scattering of UV radiation by water molecules and fine particles in the atmosphere.

What do you think are the chances of human civilization achieving what the following graph says we HAVE TO DO?

There is NO WAY in God's (formerly good) Earth that we can avoid a climate that is almost entirely unsuitable for human life. The above graphic illustrates that. Anyone who thinks that we can do what needs to be done to avoid a PLUS 4° C (and above!) climate that will kill most humans and cause the extinction of thousands of other vertebrate species is engaging in magical thinking.

ALL the people near the surface in the tropics will die as crispy critters, period. Those in temperate zones will perish too. Those near the poles who live near the surface will last as long as the food they have lasts. Unless they can maintain some geothermally heated and powered high tech greenhouse CITY that includes PLENTY of crop growing quality light and plenty of water, they will die too.

I might add that those greenhouse giant domes, both near the poles ond on high equatorial mountains, had better be MASSIVELY strong. The storms that will visit them and the wind speeds they will face in a PLUS 4 ° C planet will make any recent hurricane look like a gentle breeze.

In Antarctica, some vegetables have now been (sort of) successfully grown.

SNIPPET:

These Antarctic vegetables were grown without pesticides, daylight, or even soil — but they look absolutely delicious.

Various vegetables which were harvested from the EDEN-ISS greenhouse at the Neumayer-Station III on Antarctica. Image credits: DLR

Germany’s southernmost workplace, the Neumayer-Station III, has harvested the first crop of Antarctic vegetables. Biologists report that they’ve successfully grown 3.6 kilograms (8 pounds) of salad greens, 18 cucumbers and 70 radishes grown inside a high-tech greenhouse, as temperatures around the research station were plummeting to -20 degrees Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit).

The plants were grown without soil, in a closed-water circle. No outside lighting was used — instead, researchers optimized and used an LED system. The carbon dioxide cycle was also closely monitored.

While this is a solid crop already, researchers are expecting much more in the future. The German Aerospace Center DLR, which coordinates the project, said that in the coming months, they expect to harvest 4-5 kilograms of fruit and vegetables a week.

Image shows engineer Paul Zabel with fresh salad he harvested in the EDEN-ISS greenhouse at the Neumayer-Station III on Antarctica. The project with — instead of soil — a closed water cycle, optimized lightning and carbon dioxide levels is a test of what may become part of the nutrition program for astronauts in future moon or Mars missions. Image credits: DLR.

I am skeptical of the nutritive value of crops grown this way. Though it is good to know they used no pesticdes, the article says nothing about any nutritive mineral analysis of these vegetables, so there is no evidence yet that this is a sustainable crop growing method in a harsh climate changed plus 4 degrees C world.

The article ends with optimistic talk about using the above technique (and similar techniques like they use in the International Space Station) to eventually grow food in spaceships and on other planets.

Within a decade or less, successfully growing food near the poles will be far more important for the survival of humanity here on earth than in space or on some other planet.

Speaking of activity near the poles to deal with Climate Change, Iceland is one of the few places on Earth that are seeing benefits from Climate Change. They may be destined to be one of the outposts of humanity in an increasingly overheated world.

Now they are planting evergreens 🌱 🌲. But, if we do not reverse the overheating trend, they will eventually have to plant these: 🌴

Even with laudable efforts like the forest planting project in Iceland, humanity needs to do far, far more to survive.

We will need gigantic, and I mean "miles in diameter" GIGANTIC, greenhouses to get a reasonable amount of food grown near the poles and/or on the equatorial mountains.

The giant greenhouse domes situated in the high equatorial mountains would have to be something like the U.K. Eden Project Domes, but way up high on a mountain. In England they have an enclosed rainforest in these domes. They need to be ten or twenty times bigger for an equatorial alpine community. If the post collapse alpine community could control the atmospheric pressure in the giant domes, more UV protection is guaranteed and more comfortable living for humans too.

For those still worried about fellow humans trying to kill you for your stuff, remember that high mountains are a natural defense against warlike humans during the initial phases of the Climate Change Caused Collapse. The heat lower down will eliminate any human threat after a couple of decades.

STOP thinking you are going to live on planet that has the remotest resemblance to the one you have lived in all your life. THAT is WISHFUL THINKING! The LEAST of your problems is going to be worrying about the "zombie" humans getting your stuff.

NOTE: I pose these issues for your discussion. I will not argue the merits of them beyond this comment. If you disagree with anything I said, then you are entitled to be as wrong as you like.

What would be interesting to know is how much electrical energy it took to produce those lettuces in the Antarctic. Actually that equates to how many litres of distillate for the generators.

I believe your focus on energy requirements is not the most important issue here. The reason for that is that wind energy in Antarctica is off the charts high, as well as being nearly constant. They will always have plenty of energy to grow these veggies. The issue is whether this technique provides adequate nutrition for people and animals that will consume it. I am not convinced that it will.

One of the reasons I get tired of posting at the Doomstead Diner is your misguided fixation with energy issues. The problem is pollution, not energy. I will never convince you of that. That's regretable but I can deal with that as long as you stop using my channel to voice your erroneous world view that lack of energy instead of massive pollution from greenhouse gases is what will cause the collapse of human civilization. If your purpose is to "teach" me about what a "tough world" it is out there, you are wasting your time. I knew about that long before you did. If your purpose is to make me stop posting about the sine qua non benefits to mankind of Renewable Energy, you are succeeding. Keep it up and I will stop posting completely. Congratulations, fossil fueler.

Yes, it is quite impressive. Did you see the large greenhouse in Iceland used for starting their tree saplings in the posted Iceland video? It wasn't that big but it wasn't small either. The Icelanders get it. Climate Change caused by greenhouse gases is THE issue of our time, not lack of energy.

For some really BIG greenhouses, though not in the attractive dome shape of the Eden Project, check out Denmark's massively huge greenhouses. I posted on it a while back. You can find it if you do a search.

The Tectonic & Volcanic 🌋 Events That Will Accompany The Melting Of The Ice Sheets — An Overview

April 28th, 2018 by James Ayre

As the ice sheets of the world melt, an enormous amount of pressure will be lifted off of the continental crusts that play host to them, as well as the surrounding oceanic basins. Something similar is broadly true, but to a much lesser degree, of the world’s remaining large glaciers (think of the Himalayas).

As this pressure is lifted, after tens of millions of years of being there, tectonic and volcanic features that have been dormant for hundreds of thousands of years or even tens of millions of years will awake — as will broader geologic-system elements and processes.

Melt streams on the Greenland Ice Sheet on July 19, 2015. Ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets as well as alpine glaciers has accelerated in recent decades. NASA photo by Maria-José Viñas.

The ice sheets of East Antarctica have effectively been there in one form or other for ~15 million years (to a lesser extent than now, though), while a portion of the Greenland ice sheet is thought to have partially melted around 120,000–130,000 years ago during the Eemian interglacial period. The volcanic and tectonic pressures of the regions in question, in other words, are now well primed.

While all of this may just sound like a horror story or something to some of those reading this, there’s a reason for that — a basic sense of highly traumatic natural disasters is encoded culturally (and possibly genetically as well) in people, with stories being the vehicle to bring such awareness to the surface. (This is the take of many people, mine included.) That basic sense effectively brings with it hundreds or thousands of millennia’s worth of “human” experience of extreme natural disruption and disaster. Hence the relatively common human fascination with them (think of the way that some but not all people are inherently wary of snakes and spiders, despite the very limited immediate danger they pose).

The reality is that the last few thousand years have been almost unbelievably stable by (pre)historical standards when it comes to geologic and volcanic events. Looking back across longer stretches of time, one sees what would be considered to be “civilization-wrecking” natural disasters regularly.

One also often sees, of course, oceans with currents, winds, and waves that would effectively make modern-style large-scale oceanic shipping an impossibility. These periods of time often seem to also be host to enormous and powerful storms that do not have modern analogs. But that’s mostly neither here nor there with regard to this subject. Though, I will note that as sea levels continue rising, and as ocean temperatures continue rising, the total area of the earth covered by the oceans will increase, and a greater portion of overall ocean area will relate to shallow areas — which will make the open oceans a much more dangerous place than they are now.

Back to the subject at hand, though, I’m going to provide an overview here of the potential volcanic and geologic events awaiting us as the world’s ice sheets disappear and the processes buried beneath them wake up. I’m going to do that by doing what reliably throughout human existence has given the best predictions — taking a look at the past (at actual geological history), inferring patterns, and intuitively projecting them out onto the future.

As a reminder of why this matters, it should be realized that the world is now on track for a 3° Celsius to 8° Celsius temperature rise by the year 2100 — effectively, enough to lead to the complete melting of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, and possibly the East Antarctic ice sheet as well.

As far as the timing of such melting, assuming that the just mentioned range of warming occurs by 2100, it shouldn’t be assumed that melting and collapse will occur slowly or evenly. As noted in a 2007 paper co-authored by James Hansen: “We find no evidence of millennial lags between forcing and ice sheet response in paleoclimate data. An ice sheet response time of centuries seems probable, and we cannot rule out large changes on decadal time-scales once wide-scale surface melt is underway.”

That’s the reality of the situation — past ice sheet melting processes have played host to catastrophic pulse events, whereby global average sea levels have risen by many tens of feet in just a few years time.

In such cases, pressure changes on tectonic plates and volcanic hotspots would have been severe, leading directly over the short or mid term to a large uptick in volcanic and tectonic activity, as numerous studies exploring the issue have found. (For instance, by 2 to 6 times above background levels from 12,000 years ago to 7,000 years ago in de-glaciating regions with regard to volcanism.)

On that note, in the past when this subject has been brought up, I have heard some people argue that such an increase in volcanism would result in global cooling due to the release of reflective compounds into the atmosphere. A look back at geological history, though, shows clearly that this idea is mistaken — volcanic cooling due to the release of reflective compounds is a very short-term phenomena, whereas greenhouse gas climate forcing plays out over much longer periods of time. To simplify it, greenhouse gases are atmospheric gases, whereas the reflective compounds just discussed are essentially dust (which largely settles).

It should be realized here, in relation to that, that the current widespread burning of fossil fuels itself results in the release of such reflective compounds into the atmosphere. If such burning was to cease completely as of right now, the “cooling” effect provided by such compounds would disappear over just a few years while the “heating” effects provided by the greenhouse gases released to date would continue far into the future. As it stands, the greenhouse effect already greatly eclipses the cooling effect, but with the settling of the reflective compounds, heat gain would amplify quickly — leaving the world in a bit of a catch-22 when it comes to fossil fuel burning.

To start this off, it should be noted that some research examining the history of the relationship between volcanic events and ice sheet melting has posited the theory that one of the drivers for the relatively rapid shifts from glacial to interglacial time periods (as is often seen in the geologic record) is in fact rising rates of volcanism.

The idea is that, as ice sheets melt, the reduced pressure leads to rising rates of volcanism (as can be observed in the record) and this leads to gains in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations over the mid term. So, to say it again, over the mid term, rising rates of volcanism leads to rising temperatures — as the cooling effect resulting from the volcanic emission of reflective compounds into the atmosphere is short lived whereas the effects of greenhouse gases are much longer lived.

Conversely, that idea includes the assertion that falling rates of volcanism (as interglacials drag on) is a cause of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and temperatures — and thus a return to glacial conditions.

Interestingly, the evidence also seems to show that, as temperatures rise, and thus as sea levels rise (from glacial melt), volcanic activity on the seafloor is reduced — owing to the greater weight of the water resting on it. Tectonic activity on the other hand is a different matter — as increasing oceanic weights may well intensify the intensity of earthquakes and similar events.

To go back to specifics here, there are numerous volcanoes currently active around the peripheries of Antarctica, but what’s very interesting is the presence of an extensive volcanic belt beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet — possibly the largest such belt of volcanoes in the world according to a recent study (at least 138 strong, some of which are quite extensive).

As noted in that study, West Antarctica is also home to one of the “most extensive regions of stretched continental crust on the Earth,” so it’s not surprising to learn that volcanic and tectonic activity in the region is potentially (periodically) quite high.

What’s particularly notable to us here right now, though, are the potential effects that such subglacial volcanic and tectonic activity could have on the stability to the nearby ice sheets. It isn’t necessary for an ice sheet to completely melt for a large volcano to erupt, after all — partial melting, and thus greatly reduced compression, could well be enough on its own to trigger widespread subglacial volcanic activity in the region.

And what would a large increase in volcanic and tectonic activity lead to in the region? Increased ice sheet melt rates? Large partial collapse events? Sea level rise pulses of several to tens of feet in just a few years time? To what degree could subglacial volcanic eruptions increase basal ice sheet flow rates?

Of course, no one can say for sure on any of those counts as of right now, but it is very notable that there’s evidence for numerous large sea level rise pulses throughout prehistory that retain ambiguous origins. The speculations discussed above provide a potential (partial) answer.

Back to the world of what is known concretely, Antarctica is currently home to at least 4 volcanoes on the mainland, and numerous volcanoes on nearby islands. As would be expected, these active volcanoes are only known of because they are located on the peripheries of the ice sheets, or on outcrops. Whatever volcanoes are present under the vast ice sheets have to be inferred (though they are clearly widespread, with there being at least 138 in just West Antarctica, as noted above).

Mount Erebus Image by NSF/Josh Landis

The 4 active mainland volcanoes are: Mount Berlin; Mount Hampton; Mount Melbourne; and Mount Kauffman — three stratovolcanoes and a caldera. On the surrounding islands, there are a fair number of active and large volcanoes as well, including Mount Erebus and Deception Island, both of which have been relatively active in recent history. Other island volcanoes known to be active are: Penguin Island; Buckle Island; Lindenberg Island; and Paulet Island.

The area around West Antarctica is also known to be home to numerous underwater volcanoes — some of which are located in relatively shallow areas.

Evidence for high levels of relatively “active” volcanoes in the region include pronounced geomagnetic anomalies, evidence of subglacial volcanism, and high regional heat fluxes — that all being the case, those that assume the relative quiet of recent centuries with regard to West Antarctic volcanism will continue indefinitely are likely mistaken. As the ice sheets there continue shedding mass (and thus lowering compression), an increase in activity seems likely.

Another aspect to consider while discussing this subject is the presence of large coal deposits and oil shales (dating back to the Devonian and Jurassic periods mostly) around the Transantarctic Mountain range. While such a possibility is a low-probability event, it still seems worth considering what would happen if these relativity exposed coal seams were to be ignited via volcanism (an event which appears that have happened at numerous times in prehistory in different parts of the world).

Volcanic & Tectonic Potential of Greenland as Ice Sheet Melts

What do we know about the volcanic and tectonic history of Greenland? Not much, due to the great thickness of the ice sheet that covers most of the island and limited research to date. What we can say for sure, though, is that a volcanic hotspot is located just to the east on the island on Iceland. We can also note that Iceland is known to have experienced an increase in volcanic activity as it de-glaciated.

Does this imply that something similar will happen in Greenland (but on a much larger scale)? No one can say for sure one way or another at this point.

Despite that being the case, I’ll still note here that, given the bowl-like shape of the island (with the ice sheet held in the center), potential subglacial volcanic eruptions would likely increase the rate at which the ice sheet melts and flows into the sea. Geologic history shows this to be the case in Iceland, and something very similar has been inferred to have happened numerous times in West Antarctica in the past as well.

Something that’s less up for debate, though, are the effects that the melting of the truly massive ice sheet of Greenland would have on the tectonic stability of the wider region. It’s pretty much a given that large tectonic events would follow over the near or mid term if the ice sheet were to completely (or even just largely) disintegrate. Other things to bear in mind are the possibilities of such melting events setting off sea-floor sediment collapses, like the one thought to have caused an enormous tsunami that hit Western Europe in prehistory; and also the inevitability of large post-glacial rebound in the surrounding areas (the land rises due to the lack of compression).

There are other possibilities as well, of course, but the aforementioned ones should give those who read this a better understanding of the way that ice sheet melting and cycles of regional and volcanic and tectonic activity are linked. While cycles may not show clearly on the global level when it comes to such things, they do tend to show on the regional and local levels.

Poor people being forced not to consume scarce resources is not an ingredient for collapse, BAU is.

It seeems the "skill" of our propagandist mindforkers is being tested to the limit.

I am in agreement with GO on this issue. As GO stated, more or less, the total collapse of civilization is being caused by BAU.

Thank you Agelbert, A most unusual and may I state "Delightful" circumstance for a change.

GO said: A most unusual and may I state "Delightful" circumstance for a change.

When a person is, in my (not always ) very humble opinion, right, I try to not let my 'prejudices' get in the way of a wise and well thought out comment, like yours.

The horrendous inustices that oligarchs, kings, commissars, presidents (and other assorted elite riff raff throughout the sad history of the human species) visit on the masses is nothing new. What is new, is the increasingly unviable biosphere. This situation is a creeping cancer eating away at each and every complex life web system that we all depend on. This biosphere degradation, though imperceptible to most people due to its slow creep, has such MASSIVE inertia that it is virtually impossible to stop, or even slow.

Of course we should do what we can. Ignoring a cancer rarely cures it. But, as many who post here have said, more or less, THERE'S THE RUB! IOW, the ones with the actual power to DO something to mitigate this Catastrophic Climate Change threatening to make us go the way of the Dodo Bird, refuse to engage in anything but slow, incremental steps that, though real and valid, are woefully inadequate.

I think I know why.

It's NOT because TPTB are stupid. They understand quite well what is going on with the climate. They understand that, no matter how titanic and massive the effort to clean up this planet's mankind Pollution Poisons produced by industry from mining to chemical factories to fossil fuels and so on, THIS generation, and probably the next FOUR GENERATIONS, will NOT see the benefits due to the massive inertia baked in to t Catastrophic climate Change.

Why invest trillions (it will take many trillians!) to convert our civilization to one that doesn't destroy the biosphere when you will not see much of ANY benefits in your elite oligarch life or that of your privileged offspring and two or three generations down the line as well?

But there is more. The transition to a sane civilization that lives in harmony with the biosphere will create havoc and poverty and death and strife and misery simply because THAT MONEY is now needed to keep the Catastrophic Climate Change damage from getting temporarilly 'out of hand' (see: finger in the dike).

Transitioning to a sane civilization that protects and preserves a viable biosphere is, for TPTB, just not a 'good investment'.

So, they do a bit of math and start hoarding all the goodies that they need to start a civilization all over again when the masssive die-offs happen.

They sit down with top scientists and try to get accurate data for the minum size cohort representatives of various species, including humans, to kick start the biosphere after it has been thoroughly trashed in the next 150 years or so (see: unstoppable Catastrophic climate Chane INERTIA).

It won't work. But, TPTB have always functioned this way. They know of no other way to behave, due to their moral failings.

GO, if you want to know why the plan TPTB have to survive with about 90% less "useless eater humans" is doomed to failure, PM me. It is unrelated to this thread and deals with Climate Change hard facts.

July 11th, 2018 by Guest Contributohttp://echonewspaper.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/15-An-inconvenient-sequel.jpgr

Originally published on The Climate Reality Project.

Six deeply engaging and thought-provoking films shine a light on the realities of the climate crisis today – and imagine what it means for our tomorrow.

Truly great films about the climate crisis are tough to come by. Allusions to environmental destruction are very familiar in the futuristic dystopias Hollywood churns out like clockwork, but they rarely get the science right – or they abandon it entirely in favor of skipping straight to some post-apocalyptic CGI extravaganza.

Those of us with a little knowledge of the climate crisis bristle at this kind of doom-and-gloom bombast – because we know better. But that doesn’t mean a few thoughtful films haven’t been able to cut through the noise.

Below are six of our favorites. We decided to spice it up by mixing narrative films with documentaries – and while our changing climate understandably casts a long, dark shadow over any future that wrestles with its impacts, we did our best to stay on the right side of the fine line between raucous, factually dubious calamity and thought-provoking “what if” explorations or science-centered spectacle.

Interstellar

Director Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is that rarest of Hollywood anomalies – a wildly complicated, lavishly expensive, wholly original mainstream blockbuster. It doesn’t exist in the Marvel or DC cinematic universes; instead, it occupies a not-so-distant-future version of our very own – and things aren’t exactly going great.

While the words “climate change” are never explicitly said in the film, the impacts of the crisis are writ large, driving a plot about an attempt to flee a near-future Earth reeling from drastically changing weather patterns and global food shortages for the safety of a new habitable planet.

Featuring one of the most stacked casts in recent memory, including Oscar winners Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, and Ellen Burstyn and nominees Jessica Chastain, Timothée Chalamet, and John Lithgow, Interstellar takes on a very real consequence of climate inaction, though it offers up an untenable solution.

After all, there’s still no Planet B.

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Living in a Louisiana bayou community called “the Bathtub,” six-year-old Hush Puppy (youngest-ever Best Actress Oscar nominee Quvenzhané Wallis) can’t get the prehistoric aurochs her teacher tells her will be released from melting ice caps off her mind – even as the world in front of her crumbles and cowers, the victim of powerful storms, failing levees, and familial health problems.

While the film’s setting is technically fictional, it was inspired by several very real fishing villages in Southern Louisiana’s Terrebonne Parish. These small, isolated wetland communities are threatened by climate-driven erosion, extreme weather, and rising sea levels. Most notable among them is the rapidly disappearing Isle de Jean Charles, former home of “the first American climate refugees.”

Chasing Coral

The 2017 documentary Chasing Coral enjoys a rare accolade: It is one of a pretty short list of films to hold a 100 percent “fresh” rating on popular review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

That coral reefs are existentially threatened by the climate crisis is a truth near-universally acknowledged. But filmmaker Jeff Orlowski doesn’t simply telegraph a report on this impending ecological catastrophe.

Instead, Orlowski infuses his film with such empathy and ardor for our world’s oceans and their vibrant ecosystems – as well as those working hard to save what’s left – that it’s impossible to not walk away pumped up and ready to join the fight.

Snowpiercer

Like we already mentioned, we try to avoid cynical, despondent hot takes on the climate crisis. But we’re fans of director Bong Joon Ho’s Snowpiercer for two big reasons: First, it’s a very, very good, wildly underseen film, and second, because it confronts head-on the dangers of a “we’ll deal with this later” approach to climate action.

The film is set in a future where a failed geoengineering experiment to counteract climate change plunges the planet into a new ice age, killing all life except for those lucky enough (a phrase we’re using loosely here) to have boarded the titular train. This train now circles the globe on a constant loop and a tyrannical class system has taken hold onboard.

It’s an important cautionary tale: While we should investigate any and all scientific developments to stop the climate crisis, dangerous gambles like geoengineering – or for that matter, fleeing our planet for an imagined oasis somewhere deep in the universe – could come with unintended consequences. So, why risk it when we know for sure that quickly transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables can and will work?

There’s even an important philosophical principle – one at work in another great, underappreciated sci-fi film, 1997’s Contact – to back this one up. Attributed to fourteenth century logician and Franciscan friar William of Ockham, Ockham’s Razor states… well, Jodie Foster’s Dr. Ellie Arroway put it best: “All things being equal, the simplest answer is usually the right one.”

(We agree, Dr. Arroway.)

Note: For all its incredible imagination, Snowpiercer definitely has some moments of real violence and isn’t one for younger audiences.

An Inconvenient Truth/An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power

Now, of course, the film that started a movement – and the follow-up that propelled it to new heights.

After seeing former US Vice President Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, people worldwide finally understood the reality of the climate crisis devastating our planet. For many, it was the moment they knew they personally had to do something about it. The film’s impact continues to be felt more than a decade after it won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Documentary and took its place among the highest-grossing documentaries ever.

Last year’s follow-up, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, took that story further, showcasing both the amazing progress that’s been made as well as how much further we still have to go to solve the climate crisis.

Both documentaries present the science and stakes of the crisis and ask viewers if they’re ready to fight like our world depends on it (because it does).

ARE YOU READY TO FIGHT?

Just like you saw others do in An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, you too can work with Vice President Gore himself along with a host of field-leading experts and activists to learn the facts of the climate crisis and how we can solve it together. Apply today to attend our Climate Reality Leadership Corps training in Los Angeles, California, from August 28-30, and join an incredible network of dedicated activists devoted to solving the greatest challenge of our time.

You know our climate is changing. You know renewable energy is the answer. And you want to make a difference.We’ll show you how.

Houston Texas is in peril. The country's fourth most populous city faces hurricanes heat and the growing consequences of global warming. Only a radical solution can save the city a solution that may lie within a massive dome 1500 feet high and a mile in diameter that will rise over the city center. Building the dome will require innovative engineering and construction on an unprecedented scale with lessons materials and techniques drawn from around the world. From the Eden Project the world's largest geodesic domes to a tiny factory in Bremen Germany which manufactures a revolutionary plastic the idea of a city-sized dome could finally become reality.

Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Socialism – RAI with A. Buzgalin (12/12)

July 29, 2018

On Reality Asserts Itself, Prof. Alexandr Buzgalin says the conditions for socialism did not exist in the 1920’s but now they do, but there will be many zigs and zags getting there – with host Paul Jay

PAUL JAY: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay, and this is Reality Asserts Itself. And we’re in New York, and you might notice that we’re in a different studio, we’re still in New York City. And joining us again to continue our discussion is Professor Alexander Buzgalin. Alexander Buzgalin is a professor of political economy and the director of the Center for Modern Marxist Studies at Moscow State University. Thanks for joining us again.

ALEXANDER BUZGALIN: Thank you. I’m very glad to have this dialogue.

PAUL JAY: So, you are a professor of Marxist studies, and one of the core concepts of Marx, as I understand it, is socialism is born in the womb of capitalism, just as capitalism was born in the womb of feudalism, and so on. And the conditions for the development of socialism argued by Marx and Engels and others, Lenin and others, was that a fully developed modern industrial capitalism gives rise to big enterprises that are extremely well-planned internally, even though overall in the economy, in the politics, it’s still anarchy. It’s still very chaotic and there’s no planning. And that the- if those big enterprises could become public, publicly owned, then all that internal efficiency and organization could then extend towards the whole economy, and you could have a planned economy and avoid the periodic crises, the recessions and so on. When you look around the world now and you look at this thesis, how does one apply that to what you see?

ALEXANDER BUZGALIN: You made great provocation, and I am afraid that I will not propose now boring lecture, but provocation is for boring lecture, really, especially for a professor. If we can look on modern development of the material production, we really have material basis for the beginning of communist era, very beginning. I will use one historical parallel. For the beginning of capitalist era, capitalist mode of production, it was necessary to have division of labor and automized producers. Industrial system was not inevitably necessary for that beginning. For the stabilization, for the victory, yes, it was necessary to have industrial production. So, the period from relatively developed craft production with this division of labor, with roads and with relatively free of personality, it was basis for market for market and for very beginning of capitalist epoch.

PAUL JAY: Okay, hang on. Break that down for people who don’t know what you’re talking about. So, when you mean division of labor, what does that mean?

ALEXANDER BUZGALIN: Division of labor is very simple thing. I am producing bread, you are producing milk, another guy is producing butter, somebody producing equipment, somebody is helping for horses to grow up, and so on. Everybody is doing his separate things.

PAUL JAY: Instead of one farmer doing everything for himself.

ALEXANDER BUZGALIN: Yeah, because people were living, thousands years, when everybody was produced by family, all, and consumed by family. So, and capitalism was growing with zig zags, with victories and defeats, five hundred years. Even now in Russia in twenty-first century, we still don’t have final victory of capitalism, by the way. So, the same with genesis of communism.

PAUL JAY: Meaning there’s still some feudalism in the countryside.

ALEXANDER BUZGALIN: Yeah, we have a lot of such. Forty percent of potato is produced in the dacha, pieces of land which people has to have food in poor regions of Russia. So, and this is Russia, this is not in central Africa. So, let’s move to the parallel. For genesis of communism, it’s also necessary to have minimal prerequisites and optimum basis. Minimum prerequisites is a strong, developed industrial production with big enterprises specialized in different spheres and interconnected by international corporation or at least national corporation.

We already have this in main countries of the world, even in newly developed, new industrial countries like Brazil or Russia, China and so on. So, this is minimum. And we can start moving to the new society with assistance of plan, with modern computers, with modern internet technologies. Even now, a huge corporation knows what everybody, what Buzgalin and you, another girl, boy, I don’t know, dog, what in the supermarket this minute, this second, because this is universal information. Through social networks, it is possible to receive information about every step of everybody in the world. And it’s not problem, technically it’s not problem to put all this information together and to use optimization models. The problem is social.

PAUL JAY: To plan an economy.

ALEXANDER BUZGALIN: Planned economy. The problem is social.

PAUL JAY: Just an example of one of the most brilliantly internally planned economies is Amazon, which does exactly what you’re saying, and is able to not just know when you like a particular type of toothpaste to tell you here’s a greater tube of toothpaste, but to plan that supply chain globally.

ALEXANDER BUZGALIN: Yeah, it’s true. So, and the problem is social. And main problem, main negative feature of market is not simply crisis of all production or disproportions in some spheres. Main negative feature of market is consumerization of society, commodity fetishism and fetishism now even of simulacra of commodities, signs, symbols. Simulacra means- okay, one example which I use everywhere, maybe it will be well-known after that. If you have jacket with Hugo Boss here, this jacket will cost one thousand dollars. If it is, I don’t know, “Red Moscow,” it will be fifty dollars. What is the difference? Brand. And this value is created by marketing, not by production of goods, by production of symbols. And this production of symbols is main negative result of market. And people who are spending, I don’t know, all weekends in the megamalls for shopping, they are worse than alcoholics. They are shopaholics. I don’t know if it’s possible to say in English.

PAUL JAY: Yeah, that is a term.

ALEXANDER BUZGALIN: Yeah, so that’s why this is negative. And we can move this, but this is minimum prerequisite for movement towards new society. Why? Because communism is a society where people have as main need, interesting work. Second, in your working place, in your life, you have not competitors who must be killed, not physically but economically killed. You have people with whom, in solidarity, you are making, together, something interesting.

PAUL JAY: But this vision, the way you’re articulating it, more or less, was the same vision from the Soviet Union from the 1920s and all the way, and it didn’t work. It didn’t become the kind of society you’re talking about. What’s different about now?

ALEXANDER BUZGALIN: First of all, in 1920s, we had absolute minimum basis for the beginning. It’s like to build capitalism without machines, even without steam. And to build capitalism when you have not simply steam, but electricity and so on, it’s much easier. So, now we have big progress of productive forces, if I can use Marxist terminology. Second, we have experience of one hundred years of mistakes and victories. And this is also very important. And finally, even now, we have chances only to start this process. And then will be long zig zag. I use parallel of Mississippi, which is going from North to the South and is a lot of zig zags. So, we can start moving from the very beginning, a small, very, very small river. Communist huge river will be in the future if we will pass all the zig zags and barriers. So, this is the problem. And modern capitalism, financial capital, virtual, fictitious capital, creates enormous obstacles. Now, main efforts of technicians, software specialists, artists even, is used for what? For marketing, for management, for financial speculations, for increasing of derivatives, profit, profit, profit.

PAUL JAY: Most of the best mathematicians and even physicists are working on Wall Street, writing algorithms to game the stock market.

ALEXANDER BUZGALIN: Yeah. And what is technical progress? 1900, beginning of twentieth century, first airplane can fly two hundred meters with speed fifty kilometers per hour. Fifty years later, airplane, nine hundred kilometers through continents. What we have now, the same airplane.

PAUL JAY: So, you’ve got, if you call this the material conditions for socialism, you’re saying communism, is these enormously well-organized, efficient, massive corporations like Amazon’s one of the best examples, but there’s others. And artificial intelligence is going to raise that to a whole other scale. But they’re privately owned. And as long as the ownership remains private, there’s no reason any of what you’re saying should come about.

ALEXANDER BUZGALIN: It’s absolutely true. And the choice is very simple. Either we have elite, a lot of semi-slaves and a lot of useless people- of course, people cannot be useless, but they are useless for capital. Or, we have communist society or socialism at the beginning of movement in this direction.

PAUL JAY: And why do you jump to the word communist? Because this ain’t gonna happen fast, there’s going to be a long transition. If it happens at all, it’s going to be long.

ALEXANDER BUZGALIN: For me it is important in order to be able to show the trend. I used word communism because you know, when you fix, socialism is transformation from capitalist or even feudal and capitalist society, slavery, feudalism and capital together, to the new society. And period of transformation is socialism. But if you lose trajectory, if you lose direction, it will be tragedy. I am asked in China very often, “We have the same economy as in Soviet Union during New Economic Policy, yes or no?” I say, in some aspects, no. Why? Because during new economic policy, 1920s, it was said, “We must move from mixed economy, semi-democratic political system with a lot of oppression of people because it’s class struggle in very intensive form, towards the real democracy, real humanism, real socialism.” And this is the vector, with zig zags, but in this direction. China doesn’t have this direction. They can say that more private property is better.

PAUL JAY: Just very quick, for people that don’t know, what is the NEP period in the Soviet Union? ALEXANDER BUZGALIN: New Economic Policies period is just after socialist revolution and civil war, which started in 1921, led by Lenin Bolsheviks but with a lot of bourgeoise intelligentsia together, and it was a period when we had market economy with plans, we had a lot of private property, especially in agriculture or in villages, in agriculture. We had the first state enterprises and we had very big enthusiasm from below. Millions of people in poor country, ordinary workers, participated in clubs where they were learning how to make poem, how to create poem, how to be sportsmen, how to be scientist and engineer, how to make radio- it was more than to make computer now- how to go to the space. Of course, not space, but to make airplane, something like that.

PAUL JAY: So, the idea is that you could have a certain amount of privately owned-

PAUL JAY: As you head toward bigger the arc toward socialism, whereas in China they seem to be heading towards a bigger arc toward state capitalism and not much beyond that.

ALEXANDER BUZGALIN: Yeah. And when it is official rhetoric, they will say that they are moving in socialist direction. But to say that we will less and less private property, never. They don’t touch this question, so I don’t want to go to the problem of China, but just to mention it.

PAUL JAY: Well, let’s go back to the scale of internally well organization, the globalization of production that came with digitization and computers that enabled all of this, is about- you know, we’re on the precipice of a whole new, real qualitative leap in that kind of technology, called artificial intelligence. What do you make of the significance of that? In fact, one, in the short term, meaning in the next five, ten years or so, we could see millions of jobs lost. And then two, if you add to that the climate crisis and the deteriorating environment and the deteriorating ability of humans to live on this earth.

I really see the wealthy elites, and I’m told that literally they are talking about having their own escape plans, and imagining a life which is the wealthy, serviced by robots, artificial intelligence creates everything, and the rest of the population of the world can live like in the movie Hunger Games. You know, they can go screw off, and whatever happens to them, too bad. And there’s a very serious conversation going on amongst the elites that the real danger is that when that happens, the elites will be so dependent on robots and artificial intelligence that AI is actually going to take over from the humans. And very serious scientists are projecting that that will happen. And they’re concerned about that part, they’re not so concerned about what happens to the eighty, ninety percent of rest of the people of the world.

ALEXANDER BUZGALIN: First of all, you gave the answer. I agree with you. But I will give command on your command. First of all, about this artificial intelligence and elite and so on. They will create jobs for servants, for slaves, because even now, you can go to the restaurant where there is no waitress and it is more efficient, cheaper, and no problems. But if you are rich, you want to see it and to have ten persons around you. One will bring you bread, another will bring you water, third will make something else, one girl will come and put the napkin. So, that’s why for servants, for slaves, it will be space, but this is terrible. This is not salvation of the problem, this is creation of the terrible problem. Second, important remark. To have jobs is not as important in communism as it is important in capitalism. Because communist society means that you can work four hours a day, and it will be two times less jobs and it will be very good, very positive because people will have time to educate, to develop their cultural level, not to spend time in supermarkets and with drugs or computer games. The key problem of communism is not to create jobs, not to create consumption.

PAUL JAY: But then you get the question, who is going to control this artificial intelligence? Because the kind of world you’re talking about, it ends up a political problem. Who has power, and artificial intelligence for whom?

ALEXANDER BUZGALIN: That’s the key question. And the key is, the answer is very well-known. If we have grassroots democracy, basic democracy, so if life is controlled by people, to make it simple, we can move in the direction of a society where we have a short working day, where we have a lot of tasks to work in this field of culture, education, art, ecology. We have a lot of social problems. To put all these poor people who are starving and to move them to the cultural life, to create creators from degradated people, this is a task for everybody for a hundred years. So, we have a lot of work which must be done. Now, if we have no necessity to produce things, if we have robots, then we have enormous amount of work to make everybody poet, to make everybody healthy. To make everybody educated. And demand that everybody, billions of people who are in a terrible situation and who cannot do it themselves, it’s necessary to help them to do this together.

ALEXANDER BUZGALIN: I’m absolutely happy that we had these long dialogues and very important dialogues because Russia is very isolated from the world in many aspects. And when we can explain what is our life, how it is interconnected with international processes, when we can be together in these dialogues, it’s extremely important for us. So, I ask everybody who has interest, let’s be in touch. And this is not an abstract word, solidarity. This is real necessity to move to build international solidarity. And this is a task for intellectuals, for ordinary people, for the left, for everybody. And thank you very much, Paul, for this talk, it’s absolutely fantastic. Thank you for everybody who was watching us, listening to us.

PAUL JAY: Well, thank you so much. It’s a privilege to finally have you here and not just on webcam. And thank you for joining us on Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network.

Agelbert NOTE: This is an interesting thought exercise. 🧐 If humanity is to survive Catastrophic Climate Change, this type of big picture thinking involving massive global 🌍 scale action is sine qua non, even if this particular plan is not the best approach. What do you think? 🤔

Agelbert NOTE: I have been advocating this approach to preserving water in drought ridden areas for years . Water bodies like hydropower dams will also benefit from the added PV energy . The aquatic 🐟 life benefits because the water temperature does not rise enough to threaten them while the water level remains more stable. I hope this common sense solution is adopted in the Western USA, where more severe droughts are an increasingly deleterious effect of Catastrophic Climate Change (see below).

Johnson Controls will implement Colorado’s first floating solar PV array at the Town Water Treatment Facility in Walden. The array will provide a renewable and supplemental energy source to treat drinking water in the town, school district and Jackson County offices.

Colorado’s first floating solar PV array at the Town Water Treatment Facility in Walden. The array will help the town cut back on energy use and secure a more sustainable future, made possible through a performance contract.

The array will help conserve water by limiting pond evaporation and can potentially minimize algae growth in the pond. Additionally, its capacity is approximately 75 kW, which will offset a good portion of the power purchased used to treat drinking water for the town and in some months, could completely power the town’s drinking water facility.

“This is a monumental project for our town and will help to further our reputation as a leader in sustainability,” said Jim Dustin, mayor of Walden. “We knew Johnson Controls was the perfect partner for this project as a prequalified energy services company through the CEO performance contract program and their extensive solar experience. This project is a testament of what can be achieved with a little bit of sun, multiple state agencies and private industries working together for one common goal—and provides a great example for other towns across the state and country to emulate.”

The project was made possible through a performance contract with Johnson Controls and supported by the Colorado Energy Office (CEO). Through the contract, Walden is guaranteed energy savings and approximately 2,503,974 kWh over the next 20 years. Additional funding was secured through the Department of Local Affairs through an Energy Mineral and Impact Grant.

“The Town of Walden is setting the bar high for the state’s energy resiliency efforts,” said Rowena Adams, performance infrastructure account executive for Johnson Controls. “They are a prime example of the impact even a small town can have in being mindful of energy consumption and securing their energy future with the help of innovative solutions made possible through funding approaches like performance contracts.”

Johnson Controls worked with the non-profit organization GRID Alternatives Colorado—a leader in making clean, affordable solar power and solar jobs accessible to low-income communities—and Ciel & Terre, a floating rack manufacturer, to design, build and expedite racking delivery so the system could be commissioned by fall 2018.